


Hot Tom and the maybe-date

by TheWrongKindOfPC



Category: Bandom, Empires
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 23:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWrongKindOfPC/pseuds/TheWrongKindOfPC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>no-tags prompt #1, Sean/Tom or Sean & Tom – Sean Van Hipster Baker</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Tom and the maybe-date

**Author's Note:**

> I have no concept at all of Chicago geography and haven’t tried to learn, so all street names contained herein are entirely made up. Briefly mentions past Tom/Danielle.

The thing, the sticking point, if you will, is that Sean might never have met Tom if Tom’s regular coffee place hadn’t been too busy, hadn’t had a line almost out the door on the first day of pumpkin spice lattes—the real harbinger of fall.

Sean doesn’t approve of flavored coffees, and Aunt Cece isn’t that into them either, so they’ve just got regular, and occasionally some asshole comes in and asks for an espresso drink of some kind or other, and Sean has the pleasure of explaining that this is not, in fact, a Starbucks, but a bakery, and also, does Sean look like a barista? Some assholes have the gall to say yes to that.

Tom’s usual place is actually a nice little independent coffee shop down the road, the one Sean used to go to when he was a kid and thought he needed some place serious and away from his parents to refine his lyrics. He still goes over there sometimes, after work although not usually before, because apparently making bread requires waking up at the asscrack of dawn. Who knew?

So Tom walks in and stands dithering by the counter, but Sean can’t blame him, they’ve got quite an array here for fall. He smiles and asks, “So what can I get for you?”

The guy, who Sean doesn’t know is Tom yet, looks up and smiles all quiet and slow, and it’s early, and there is sun coming in through the window behind him, and if Sean still wrote songs—if he had ever written songs about happy-sleepy early morning things—he would so be writing a song in his head about this moment already.

Since he doesn’t, since he never has, he’s totally listening when they guy whose name he doesn’t know yet says, “I was just coming in for coffee, but this all looks so good, I don’t even know.”

It’s got to be the sun that’s still coming through the window, there’s no other explanation, the guy has this really nice smile and a little bit crooked teeth, and Sean offers him, “Here, how about I ring you up for a coffee and then throw in one of these?” as he gestures at the sticky buns. “I always make too many.”

There’s no such thing as too many sticky buns. Sean hopes the guy won’t call him on the obvious lie.

“Really? Thanks, man, that’d be great,” the guy says, and then, “Hey, let me pay you back? My band is playing this gig tonight, you should come, and then I can buy you a drink after.”

Sean has been in bands, he knows getting asked to a gig doesn’t mean anything. Or anyway, it means filling some space, but it doesn’t mean Sean is special. Still, he didn’t just say _you should come_ , he said _you should come so I can buy you a drink_. Sean think that may actually be enough to keep him sitting through a probably shitty band. He rings up the guy’s coffee, smiles back and says, “I’d like that.”

The guy pays, hands over a quarter-sheet flyer for the gig and says, “I’m Tom, by the way,” and, in a way that’s not mysterious or puff-of-smoke, but sort of feels like it should be, he’s gone.

…

Max is one of Tom’s best friends from high school, and the only person he’s been able to pick back up with being friends with since he’s been back—well, him and Aunt Cece. Later that evening, after Sean closes up the shop, he walks down the alley behind the shop, hops Mr. Lucas’s fence twice, once to get in and once to get out of his yard, because he could just go around, but tradition is important, walks down Thistle and up Grant, past the elementary school gone all dark and eerie in the twilight, and ends up on Max’s back porch.

It’s not right away, but not long after he gets there that he tells Max about hot Tom and the maybe-date. He’s not sure what kind of a reaction he’s expecting. A lot of their friendship to this point has consisted of very impassioned discussions about music, but since Sean has sworn off and given up on music to commune with bread—since he’s been back and working for Aunt Cece and no longer able to talk to any of the rest of his high school friends and not sure how to make new ones, essentially—most of their friendship has consisted of Sean offering disconnected confidences to Max on Max’ back porch after work while Max smoked and looked wise. Then Sean would offer him a bag of day-olds he didn’t want but his mother would love, and Max would invite him to play increasingly competitive ping-pong in the basement while Sean aggressively didn’t look at Max’s recording equipment. What he’s not expecting is for Max to laugh.

Which is weird, because he should be. It is kind of a funny, and Max has always had a sense of humor. It’s Sean that changed. Still, Max snorts a laugh and says, “That sounds just like—it’s not Tom Conrad?”

Sean’s not sure he likes where this is going. “It is, yeah. You know him?”

Max nods. “He’s a good guy. Good guitar player, he played on the demo for this band I worked with last year. And he and Danielle went out a couple of times.”

That, Sean had not been expecting. He’s not sure how to proceed with it, tries a few different reactions out—“Will she—did they—should I—?”

Max smiles. “It wasn’t a huge deal. They’re still friendly. I always sort of thought he had mugshot-eyes, though.”

“He does not,” Sean tells him, but now that Max has said it, he can kind of see it. Also, “He’s a musician, though.” he tells Max, who nods.

“Yeah, not all of us bite, remember.”

“I don’t think—”

“Much,” Max finishes, grinning and baring his teeth.

…

In the end, Max won’t come with him to the gig because he’s got, “Shit to do, man, sorry.”

“What shit?” Sean asks, and knows he sounds a little petulant.

“Shit you asked me not to talk to you about,” Max tells him, and his eyes say _you dumbass_ and actually, Sean has been thinking he needs to rethink that rule where Max doesn’t talk to him about musical projects. Just because his own entirely premature attempt at both a solo act and a tour had crashed and burned doesn’t mean he needs to wallow forever.

He’s not ready to tell Max that, though, not least because Max will probably offer right off the bat to help him get started again, and Sean is so out of practice, it’s awful. _Baby steps_ he tells himself, then prepares to go to Tom’s show by himself.

…

The band is good, but they’re not great. Sean feels mean for even thinking of it, but he looks up at the singer and before he even notices that he’s making the comparison, though, he thinks, _I could do better than that_.

Tom is great, which is good because Sean is not sure he’s got it in him to lie about that shit, even if Tom does have wild-intense eyes and a surprisingly shy smile.

After the show, Tom actually does come find him, too, flannel shirt stage-sweat-sticking to his body, hair in his eyes, orders them both drinks and chats with the bar-tender as he pours, then comes back over to the corner of the room Sean has claimed as his own.

Tom is looking at him like he’s expecting Sean to finish a sentence now, so Sean replays the conversation in his head and realizes he just told hot Tom with the mugshot eyes that he finds working with yeast to be very soothing.

He’s not blushing. Sean doesn't blush. He refuses. He’s not sure how to save a conversation after that. Max’s affectionate non-judgment and Aunt Cece’s genuine interest in yeast have completely ruined Sean for normal conversation.

While he’s thinking these things, Tom is looking over at him some more, and his eyes are kind of crinkly, and he asks, “Yeast?” and he sounds amused enough that Sean doesn’t even want to take it back anymore, wants to stick by it, so he does.

“Yeah, yeast! They’re just these happy little microorganism guys, and all they need is a little warm water and a little sugar and they just fizz around all happy and healthy. You can’t fuck it up! Or, you can, but once you know what you’re doing, it’s really, really hard to.”

“I could probably fuck it up,” Tom tells him. “I probably wouldn’t even have to try that hard.”

“Not much of a baker?” Sean asks him, and he’s never had a very good handle on what’s flirting and what isn’t, too earnest for his own good, Aunt Cece says, but he thinks there’s got to be something going on here. Something fizzling under the conversation. Like yeast. It’s a really good thing Tom can’t read his mind.

“Not really,” Tom says, then asks, “How did you end up working in a bakery, anyway?”

Sean takes another sip of his drink, thinks about how he wants to answer that, and when he says, “It’s my aunt’s place, the bakery,” he’s telling the truth, but that doesn’t mean he’s not stalling.

“Family business, then?”

“Not really,” Sean tells him, and leaves it there.

…

Because Sean works at a bakery and seriously, there is a little part of him that still has a hard time believing that, he excuses himself to leave around 10:30, explaining that he has to be up before the sun tomorrow.

“Yeah, of course,” Tom says, and then, “Did you say you took the bus? Let me walk over to the stop with you.”

The walk is quiet, and Sean considers then discards the idea of bringing up their mutual knowing of Max, of answering for real the question about why it is he’s doing what he’s doing, of asking Tom if he’s got as much of a problem with flavored coffee as Sean does. Instead, he tells Tom, a bit belatedly, he realizes, “Your band was really good.”

“No it wasn’t,” Tom says, smiling.

“Alright,” Sean agrees. “No, it wasn’t. You were good.”

“Thanks,” Tom says, and Sean can see his bus coming down the street.

“If you didn’t like it, why did you ask me to come?” Sean asks, as the approaching bus starts to slow, then stops.

“I wanted to see you,” Tom says, and the bus’s doors open. “I’m glad I did.”

“Me too,” Sean tells him, digging through his wallet for fare and then looking up.

“Guess I’ll see you around sometime?”

The bus driver is looking at them and he is not amused. Sean steps on the bus, turns around, and tells Tom, “You know where to find me.”


End file.
